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Take a bitter, suicidal, but brilliant quadriplegic former criminalist. Add a glamorous ex-model now a NYPD patrol person. Throw in a homicidal killer who can't decide what year it is. Shake well, add a healthy dash of New York City. Place these ingredients in the hands of that most excellent novelist, Jeffery Deaver. He who scored high with A MAIDEN'S GRAVE. What you get is THE BONE COLLECTOR, a riveting, scary, suspenseful police procedural. How scary? Wall-crawling scary. Leave the lights on all night scary. But it's not the kind of delicious scary Freddie Krueger or Cujo conjure up. This is dead of the night, chilling, bone scraping terror. From the first page the tension and spiraling suspense grab you and hold you to the very end. There is no let-up. And this novel works all the time at many levels. Lincoln Rhyme is a brilliant quadriplegic, confined largely to bed after an accident while he was going about his crime scene duties. He formerly led the NYPD Criminalistics unit and pioneered the development and formulation of many of the department's important databases. Rhyme is an intelligent, highly trained specialist who brooks no incompetence and is now forced to defend his broken body with irascibility, stubbornness and wit. Although not a likable character, one is drawn to his brilliance and to the occasional flashes of tenderness he reveals. Amelia Sachs, failed model, is a young patrol woman, about to be transferred off the street to public relations. But now a killer who seems to attack at random, is grabbing civilians off the street. The paths of Amelia and Lincoln intersect when NYPD asks civilian Rhymes to take a look at the case. Looking at the case soon becomes an exhausting race against the clever killer, a race to save lives and to prevent more kidnappings. Yes, some leaps of logic and serious suspension of disbelief are required. Small price to pay for an outstanding read. This is a big book, thickly peopled with the principled and the venal, with dozens of minor characters who inform and drive and frustrate the investigation and the story. It is a large part of Deaver's talent that these characters, large and small, as they march across the pages, interest us, amuse us, move us. THE BONE COLLECTOR is a terrific read. It should make a terrific movie.
Reviewed by Carl Brookins, June 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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